


El’s Story

by Alyx_Silvermoon



Category: Greek Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 19:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21041252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyx_Silvermoon/pseuds/Alyx_Silvermoon
Summary: Sequel to Poseidon’s Eyes and Lyra’s StoryHow did the first merman come to live below the waves?





	El’s Story

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about a trans merman; there is mention of his deadname, by him, at one point in the story

Boarding the ship, hair tucked under a cap and chest bound flat, El looked around. Nobody had noticed that there was someone on the ship just a bit prettier than most sailors, just a bit daintier, a bit softer. El preferred it that way. Working day and night with the other sailors, nobody had reason to give a second glance to the galley assistant with the long lashes and the soft skin, not soft for long. After a few weeks on a ship, everyone got a little more rough around the edges. And nobody complained when El stayed up late to clean or mend things, because that ment less chores for the rest of them in the morning. It wasn’t an issue until halfway through the third week. There was a spot of blood on El’s pants, and the Cook noticed. It was in an unfortunate place, one that only bleeds for two reasons. You have an injury to something that would have most men in bed or screaming in pain... or you are a woman. Cook confronted El, and they went to the captain. Of course, a woman on the ship is bad luck. Everyone knows that. And they wanted to be sure none of the men on the ship were injured, so they made El strip. Finding the bindings, they threw El overboard, ignoring the screams and protests of “I’m a man!! I’m a man!! Let me stay!!” 

Legs bound together, a sack of rocks tied around the waist, and rope around the wrists. It was standard procedure when throwing someone overboard, to be sure they didn’t come back to the surface. And into the sea El went, writhing and shouting until the water made it impossible. Sinking to the bottom, El’s eyes were burning, though from tears or ocean saltwater, only the gods knew. 

Before long, though, El realized something. There was water instead of air, but breathing wasn’t so hard. In fact, it hadn’t been so easy since before the first time using the bandages to bind things flat. But the bandages were still there...or were they? They seemed to be slipping. And lovely sirens swirled around, untying the ropes that bound El in place, murmuring in surprise. This was a first, they said. What do we do? And El heard a voice. Loud and powerful as a tsunami, yet soft and gentle as the waves at low tide brushing the shore, it spoke. “El. My son. My first son. You join us today because they thought you a girl, and sent you to your sisters. Today, you are the first merman. Make me proud.” And the voice faded to silence. The women had finished untying him, and El reached up out of habit, to brush the hair the sailors had unbound out of his face...hair that was no longer there. In surprise, El reached higher, brushing his hands through his now short black curls, a smile of shock on his face, and down along his neck, touching his gills. Looking down, he realizes he has a tail, as silver as the moonlight on seawater at night, and his chest is flat, like he’d always wanted. Now, he knew for sure the stinging in his eyes were tears. Happy ones. He had been on that ship to travel to the New World, to make a life where nobody knew him as Elena. Now, he was simply El, and he was home. 

A few days later, there was another siren. Another girl. She was freed quickly enough, and revenge enacted on her ship just as they had on El’s, and every ship before for as long as anyone remembered. El felt odd, being the only man around, but the women treated him like a friend. The rules were different at the bottom of the sea. Nobody really had to work, so they spent time doing what they liked. For El, that meant exploring shipwrecks to find men’s shirts for himself, and trinkets to decorate his home with. His home. That was a nice thought. He didn’t think of anywhere else as home before, not really. How could he, when nobody saw him as himself? Now that he was allowed to be true to who is was, and people saw him as who he was, he could relax, and feel at home, at peace. 

He made friends with the youngest siren, though she was far from the newest. She had been ten when she had been thrown overboard. That had been a decade and a half ago, but she still looked ten. Not because she was a siren, El thought, but because she wanted to. Poseidon seemed to know what his children wanted, and did his best to fulfill their wishes. So Lyra was ten. El was a man. They were safe. Though she had been underwater longer, she treated El like an older brother, and that included all the teasing and joking and pranking El had pulled on his older brothers, and with them, when he was human. He taught her new pranks, and she showed him new places to hide and go exploring. 

He was glad he met Lyra. She was sweet. Kind of adorable. After a while, he asked what she had been doing on a ship, anyway, and she said it wasn’t her idea. Her father had been a sailor, she said, and her mother had passed away. She had no other family, so he snuck her onto a ship to keep her safe. But the crew had panicked when they got caught in a bad storm, and her father had been convinced that they had to search the ship for anything unlucky. That had included her. So she had been thrown overboard to help save the ship. Poseidon had rescued her, and she had been living with the sirens ever since. She stayed home when they went on raids, except when another child (though they were all older than her) was thrown. They all aged normally, El noticed, except Lyra, until they reached the appearance of about a 25-year-old. 

A few years later, El asked Lyra why she stayed young. She smiled at him, in a nearly vicious way. “What is more terrifying to a man who has just murdered a child, than for children to murder him in return?” 

El didn’t know what to say. It would indeed be terrifying for a child to kill someone, he thought, though he never really saw Lyra as a child any more than she saw him as a girl. She was small, and looked young, but she was mature and a bit intimidating. Still his little sister, but also his older sister. And a friend. It was confusing, but it worked for them.


End file.
